One of the main updates in BlackBerry 10.2 is the upgrade of the Android runtime to v4.2.2 of Jelly Bean. This will add support for many more applications and better UI elements but there is one major feature that really sticks out which is Hardware Acceleration. Hardware Acceleration came to Android in v4.1 to v4.2.2 as part of a project Google called Project Butter (as in smooth as butter). BlackBerry 10 has long supported hardware acceleration for the UI and it is a feature that always made the iOS UI seem much more fluid. BlackBerry did something similar in OS 7.0 which made the UI more fluid.

The new Hardware Acceleration support for the Android Runtime in BlackBerry 10.2 should lead to games and apps with increased performance and smoothness as long as they take advantage of it. Apps with complex UI elements will look much better and not seem to get “stuck” anymore. If you have loaded up the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS let us know what you think of the newer sideloaded apps that utilize hardware acceleration.

It will never see the light of day until the Q10 comes out by at least a week…
Just common sense I guess, I took the plunge with my wife’s Z10 after reading on which OS is the best and how to install it AND add the 10.2 clock with multiple alarms.